Alissandra raised a hand, silencing her. 'You are not pregnant, that was a glamour placed upon you to bind you closer to him. I do not think you are even Elven, that itself is yet another glamour foisted upon you to keep your subservience.'
Ella's head reeled, she placed a hand upon her stomach and felt nothing there. There was no bump, the illusion had been shattered by the words that had been spoken to her. That she was not of the Elven race she could accept, it seemed a ludicrous notion and one that would take a lifetime to prove true. Was everything he had told her a lie?
'I have seen desire in his eyes before because they once held such feelings for me, in a sense he still does harbour them and I fear that he has used you as a result of that.'
She looked back at the woman now, stricken by the revelations. 'If you could see these glamours why did you not inform me of them? Why have me suffer in my belief?'
Alissandra sighed. 'You are unsettled by these revelations, imagine how they would have impacted upon you had you not known me as you do now. You would have immediately denied the possibility given El-Vador's distrust of me, the glamours would then respond in kind by reinforcing themselves.'
Were she not seated she would have staggered about the room, instead she clutched her head and tried to make sense of everything she had been told.
'How much?' she asked, sickened by the thought that this woman may know the answer. 'How much has he lied to me?'
Alissandra greeted the question with a sympathetic smile. 'I simply don't know, child. You are more likely to pluck free the truth from the recesses of his mind than I, know that he dare not lie to you any further now that the Emperor has intervened for fear of reprisal. No doubt you have seen how loyal he is to the man, that will be of paramount importance in his mind rather than continuing the deceptions. Perhaps at a time when you are more emotionally prepared you will return to his residence and he will unveil the truth.'
Ella sighed, she wasn't ready for such an encounter, her whole world had been shaken and right now she needed the stability that Alissandra afforded her.
'I will stay here for the time being and continue with my lessons.'
Alissandra smiled.
124
Jakob/Jakob Sandberg
He stared out at the clouds as they rushed by, they had picked up the pace substantially in the last few hours of their journey.
Gooseman had fully shut his eyes, whether the man was trusting him not to murder him or fully capable of defending himself in this state Jakob didn't know. What did remain was that same urge to grasp the man by the shoulders and fling him from the boat. He tried to distract himself from it, recalling the events that had taken place to bring him here and losing himself in the background of coursing wind and endless sky. It was to no avail, there was still the constant struggle against his impulses that he knew he was beginning to lose. Soon they would take hold and no power on this world would prevent him from attempting to end Gooseman's life.
Desperate for a distraction of any kind, he ended up turning back to his potential victim and asking him the first thing that came to mind.
'Did you ever consider yourself to be part of another world when you were suffering from the affliction?'
The man opened his eyes at the sound of Jakob's voice and the boat slowed considerably in response.
'Another world?'
'Yes.' He knew it sounded preposterous but he was determined to get an answer, to distract him from the urges if nothing else. 'It felt like I was a different person in another place far away from here.'
The innkeeper mused over the question. 'I cannot say I have heard of such a thing before, there have been those who see through the eyes of others using a form of displacement. That is usually with a willing participant within a few feet of them though. This talk of witnessing another world through someone else's eyes seems highly irregular.'
Jakob sighed. 'Then this isn't a symptom of your affliction but something else entirely.'
Gooseman rubbed his chin, all thought of the boat seemingly forgotten now that he had been posed with this dilemma. 'How could you tell that the world you were part of was not our own? Determining that you are not yourself would be easy enough but the Empire is a vast place, could your visions not be a part of it you have never seen before?'
'You don't understand, it wasn't just different surroundings. I had thoughts that even now I can barely comprehend, sights that I was completely unprepared for.'
'Perhaps you are feverish, are there any physical symptoms to these visions that you perceive?'
Jakob clamped his head, trying to recall the thoughts that had been slipping away from him since the displacement. 'My head feels like it's being torn apart from the inside with any attempt I make to recollect the thoughts. Each time it happens it hurts worse than before, almost to the point of blacking out. Then there is the voice.'
Gooseman's eyes lit up. 'The voice? What voice?'
He felt a sudden reluctance to tell the man, in spite of this he knew he needed to keep talking in order to distract himself. 'There is a voice that comes with the greatest of the pain, it greets me at odd times and tells me what I should do.'
The boat had come to a standstill. 'How long have you been able to do things that others around you cannot? How old were you when your first power exhibited itself?'
Jakob shrugged. 'When I was at Harvester's Barn a few weeks ago the voice came to me, it told me to use the power and I listened to it.'
'You mean your latent abilities only manifested themselves in the last few weeks at the voice's bidding?'
Jakob nodded, not knowing what to make of the man's growing excitement.
'This... this is unheard of. Was this voice a deep one of great resonance and command?'
He thought back then to the last time it had spoken to him in the arena. 'No, it was fairly high, though still masculine and faint as if whispered.'
Excitement gave way to confusion on Gooseman's face, he had clearly been anticipating something else.
'What was it you thought the voice was?' Jakob asked.
He shook his head. 'It matters not, the important distinction in tone suggests that this is a voice of unknown origin that is influencing your use of power. That bodes ill for all concerned.'
'How so?'
The boat started moving again. 'Most rogue talents have been making use of their minimal skills for some time before the Levanin academy discovers them, there are few indeed that suddenly manifest any great power and even fewer in the short spans of time that you have.'
'Does this mean that I am ill or mad in addition to my affliction?'
'No, not necessarily. I have never heard of another voice possessing a person and aiding them to such an extent with their energies, my theory would be that something has latched onto your talent and is attempting to nurture it for their own designs. You would do well to avoid their suggestions.'
'Is there anything we can do to determine who is communicating with me?'
'Not until we reach the academy.'
Jakob had been hearing negative responses from the man one too many times. His fist swung up and he managed to stall it through an act of will that made his teeth throb. The movement was not lost on Gooseman.
'It is clear to me now that time is a precious commodity with regards to our mutual well-being. I am beginning to suspect that unless we somehow make the journey to Levanin shorter you will not last.'
Jakob couldn't help but agree with the man as he forced down the murder in his system by sitting upon his twitching hands. 'Is there no possible way to speed things up? What about that thing you used to get us here?'
'Sadly warp gates take a great deal of time to construct, personal warp gates even more so. It would be too late for us long before I could complete such a thing.'
So this was it then, he was going to kill this man and then die of thirst alone on this boat unless he hurled himself off the edge and into the clouds. His potential demise had long bee
n a lingering thought in his mind, of all the ways he could have died he hadn't expected it to come like this.
'There is one possibility remaining to us,' Gooseman said, scratching his chin.
Jakob was all ears, waiting patiently for the man to finish musing over things and tell him.
'In theory we could combine our efforts in powering the craft to its destination.'
'In theory?'
A wry smile crossed the innkeeper's face. 'Yes, I can't recall it ever being attempted before. The boat was not designed to be powered by more than one person at a time, there's no telling how it would react to multiple attempts to channel it.'
He thought it sounded reasonable to try, if they were destined to die out here anyway without the effort then there was no harm in attempting it.
'We will not be doing that, I have another theory of my own in mind.'
Jakob sat silently, waiting for the man to expand upon his ideas. They seemed to be churning about in his head still as he took some time before finally elaborating.
'What we will be trying to achieve is a form of contact transference, I want you to place your hand upon my shoulder and submit yourself to whatever feeling that gradually washes over you.'
He seemed to think about this for a second. 'Except anger, or your murderous impulses obviously.'
Jakob didn't know what feeling to expect but it seemed once again that he had little choice in the matter. Perhaps this was another purposeful guidance that had brought them together. Or perhaps it was the affliction he carried that had been whispering of coincidences that in truth conveyed nothing.
'Are you ready to begin? We don't know how much time is left given your state, I wouldn't be willing to gamble on not moving without all haste.'
Jakob fought down his irrational hatred of the man one final time and nodded in silent agreement.
He planted his hand on Gooseman's shoulder without hesitation, knowing the necessity of the action and that a lack of trust would kill him as much as unconditional acquiescence.
The world went white.
He looked at the emptiness surrounding him, he was lucid once more.
'There's a big decision coming up,' the stranger said, his tone unreadable.
Jakob nodded, unsurprised to be here once again. 'Don't I know it. Events have shifted into place and now I have to push them forward to their logical conclusion.'
The stranger nodded back at him in turn. 'It is time for you to take your place centre stage. You know the decision you must take and the consequences of doing so.'
He smiled at the man. 'It's not going to be pretty, is it?'
The man shrugged. 'Blood rarely is, yet it is imperative that you continue.'
Jakob had watched his namesake battle to connect with him for too long, now he was finally allowed to take control of matters.
The first sensation Jakob felt while surrounded in the white glow was one of coldness seeping through his body, as per Gooseman's instructions he invited it onto him and resisted the urge to disconnect and massage his body back to warmth.
Then the feeling passed and a flood of warmth surged through his limbs, again he chose to greet the sensation without complaint and found it easier to do so with such a welcoming glow.
He heard the voice then, speaking directly into his mind as it had before. He only hoped that it would instruct him on how to make this craft mobile, perhaps if he divined that he wouldn't need Gooseman at all.
In spite of his urges and the practicality of the solution, he couldn't shake the immorality of it. To take a life was wrong, he would not be a willing participant in murder no matter how justified his feelings made it seem. He flat-out refused to do such a thing.
Grasp the sensations with your mind and push them out toward me.
If the sensations that flowed over him were conscious or receptive to his thoughts they gave no indication, the whiteness continued to blind his sight and the compelling voice sounded the same as before. Whoever was communicating with him currently was not Gooseman, was he being possessed by some other force?
He did as was asked of him and imagined pushing the feelings out and away from his body. Colour swam across his eyes as he did so and he felt the voice grow louder inside his head, whatever he was being instructed to do was working.
Excellent, now shape those sensations into solidity and force them outward.
He briefly heard Gooseman's voice, previously it had been a faint muffle retreating into the background in the face of all this feeling. Now it was a mimicry of the words he had heard before.
'Excellent, now shape those sensations into solidity and force them outward. You're an exceptional source of energy, the academy will be most pleased.'
He did as was asked of him by both voices and tried to envisage shaping such an abstraction.
No, don't use your previous senses. Let go of the inhibitions of the flesh and wield true power.
There was no hunger in the voice at the mention of power in spite of the way it was spoken, nothing but careful guidance and altogether nothing that he need be wary of. He found himself doing as was requested as if it was second nature, freeing his senses from their fleshy imprisonment and stretching them forth into the undulating current. He did not see the colour now as a human mind might, more perceived it as a spirit in a detached clarity that his previous position could not offer him. It was then that he realised that the pulling sensation was coming from someone else entirely.
Jakob slid into his namesake's form with an ease that surprised him, perhaps the transition had been facilitated by the stranger or his knowledge of the character allowed an unprecedented intimacy. Regardless of the reasons he had now taken on the form of the protagonist for the duration of the adventure. He had watched the faltering tale played out before his eyes with brief intermissions of blinding white surrounding him as the stranger would interject. It had been an odd sensation, to witness the fruits of his creative mind spilled out in such vivid imagery and given more substance than his own visions could possibly imbue.
He remembered the long and feverish nights at war with his keyboard, his former wife had urged him to purchase a mechanical one but he knew his clattering style would drive her mad. Instead he had fought against stiffening fingers with a resolve that frightened him as the words spilled out with no heed for the time of day or the steadily growing pangs of hunger.
To have it all finally laid before him in glorious detail was wondrous, a world that he could exist in and know everything, a place he could escape to and construct masterpiece after masterpiece as a guiding passenger.
Still it somehow hadn't been enough, he couldn't sit idly by and witness the plot tumble out before him. He saw things that needed to change, alterations that could improve the entire body of work, he needed to become the characters and shape them in the correct direction.
The stranger had held him back then, offering him a tantalising amount of power over the course of events so long as they remained true to the plot he had scratched out. Now at last he was being given a choice, the ability to carry on under the whim of this unknown force for the duration of his plot prior to shaping new events. Or to deny that, to leave it behind and return to the life he once led.
A sensation kept niggling at him, an underlying possibility that he had suppressed whilst in awe of the landscape spread out before him. There was a wrongness about what he was doing, none of it was real and to embrace it as such was delusional to the point of madness. The feeling had crept up on him over the duration of his viewing, distracting him from revelling in the masterpiece that was his creation. To have such clarity of vision was something that no writer had achieved, to inhabit the very world they had constructed. It was that which the feeling challenged, suggesting that it was ludicrous to think a mind had not envisaged that which wasn't real to such an intensity. Those few who had were undoubtedly wasting away in some safe place at the care of others and oblivious to the world around them. Was that what he wanted for
himself? To retreat from his drowning body into the land of his creation until death took him?
He knew he was drowning, to vanish so swiftly into a realm such as this before hitting the body of water suggested the triggering of some bizarre coping mechanism.
It wasn't real. None of this was real and it was that thought which remained at constant odds with his desires to embrace this fantasy until death released him.
The stranger did not appear as he opened his eyes, there was no whiteness surrounding him any more. This time he was not looking down upon events but witnessing them through the eyes of the protagonist. He watched as the boat gradually lost speed and came to a standstill, Gooseman opened his eyes in turn and looked at him in confusion.
'Is something the matter boy? Why have you stopped channelling your energy into my efforts?'
Jakob remained silent, he knew the words he was meant to say. The murderous impulses were to take hold of him now, he was destined to hurl Gooseman out into the cloudy nothingness before the man could mount a defence. Then he would master the craft and flow forth to Levanin.
'What's wrong? Has our connection drained you?'
He watched as the unfamiliar words came out of the innkeeper's mouth, by simply pausing he had altered the course of the written work. Harold Gooseman never spoke those words, they had never been written by Jakob's hands.
That wasn't the only thing that had deviated from the original plot.
Jakob raised his arm and pointed a finger forward past Gooseman's shoulder. The man warily turned about, loathing to show his back to the potentially murderous youth.
A cloaked figure stood upon the aqueduct, watching them intently with his sword drawn.
Gooseman's eyes bulged in alarm, clearly he was aware of who The Hermit was. To someone who had written their relationship this came as no surprise to Jakob. He watched instead as the pleading began, as the innkeeper warned him and then begged him for more power with which to face this threat. It was most... uncharacteristic.
Escana Page 54